Touring Machines: autonomous agents with attitudes

A multilayered integrated architecture for controlling autonomous mobile agents, or Touring Machines, is introduced. This architecture combines capabilities for producing a range of reactive and deliberative behaviors in dynamic, unpredictable domains. The approach is influenced by recent work on reactive and behavior-based agent architectures. Touring Machines blend sophisticated and simplified control features. Experience shows that this layered architecture can be configured to behave with robustness and flexibility simultaneously in dynamic settings. The implementation of the control architecture on a testbed is reported.<>